As part of running Pin Up Nights between 2003 – 2012, we ran several Hallowe’en parties at The Flying Duck advertised with the shocking pun “Pin Up Frights“, in direct homage to Optimo’s famous “Espookio” parties.
In my memory the Frights Nights have blurred into a single evening, a garish firefighter’s nightmare of hairspray and flammable nylon.
The hallowe’en theme lended itself well to plenty of advertising chat like “there’s so much going on at Pin Up Frights it’s scary” and “this year even the door price is going to give a few people a fright”
For the first Frights we bought from Asda an animatronic “Butler”, a mannequin that could move and talk, and one of my favourite Frights things ever was when Pin Ups DJ Iain Baillie, dressed in a cloak and mask as a Grim Reaper, stood next to the Butler and pretended he was also electronic, moving slowly back and forth with jerky robotic motions, until onlookers got comfortable. He then suddenly lunged forward at them, to terrifying effect. Magnificent. The Carl Barat chat is after the gallery.
Revelry reached a grisly climax at the third and final Frights with Guest DJs Carl Barat of the Libertines and his friend Didz Cooper of Reading rockers The Cooper Temple Clause. Didz was in truth attending as a de facto tour manager for Carl, but we whacked him on the flyers anyway.
Getting Barat cost an absolute fortune and we only managed to scrape together the record (and never to be exceeded) £2,500 fee with the help of a bung from The Flying Duck management (Barney of The Sparkle horse, Bell Jar and Rose Riley: thank you again) and a few quid on top from sponsors for the night Agwa.
The advertising went for Barat brown-nosing, along with a dressing-up endorsement:
“Carl Barat was the co-frontman of The Libertines, now widely acknowledged as being the best guitar band of the noughties, and with the Libertines having soundtracked many a Pin Ups party in the past it’s going to be amazing to have Carl himself in the room picking the tunes and looking all handsome. Carl’s Dirty Pretty Things collaborator Didz is joining him on his trip to Glasgow, and as if that wasn’t enough startling star-power we will also be welcoming long-term pals of Pin Ups Scott and Adele from Sons and Daughters to Guest DJ following their live show at the ABC.
Pin Up Frights is now firmly established as our annual Halloween spooktacular and if you fancy dressing up this October then this is definitely the party to come to. Last year “Lady Avatar”, “Mr Motivator”, and “The girl covered in fairy lights” all won cash prizes for their quite astonishing costumes which flaunted health, safety and common decency. This year we are looking forward to similarly inspired ensembles. Approximating the polo-neck chic of former Apple supremo Steve Jobs will be taking a few folks’ fancy, and, given Carl’s involvement, rocking up as his old chums Pete Doherty or Amy Winehouse will also be tempting propositions. Mind you, since Amy was Carl and Pete’s pal, the person who Tweeted “Cant wait for Pin Up Frights with Carl Barat DJing I am going as Zombie Winehouse” might want to reconsider….”
Now, I had met Pete Doherty, the reckless fulcrum of The Libertines, a few years previously in the Glasgow Barfly, when his side project Babyshambles played a gig filmed for MTV2’s Gonzo on Tour. For reasons I genuinely can’t remember, I had ended up in the small upstairs office along with Pete and a few other folk while punters swarmed outside. Pete had seemed like a decent sort that night, so I was fairly taken aback when Mr Barat seemed altogether more prickly. I picked up Carl and Didz from the airport, and I thought Didz was speaking “prison slang” when he asked Carl for Florence and the Machine’s number so that they could “share gear in the studio”.
(Watching Jools Holland a few days later cleared it up – Didz was playing guitar for Brett Anderson, and Florence and her band were also on the programme.)
Conversation with Carl thereafter seemed to revolve around whether I could score him drugs and/or booze, and they even tried to claim the cost of tickets to a gig in Edinburgh the next day – a daft little thing, but a thing you remember.
Nevertheless the man was massive box office (or maybe everybody was there for Didz?) and the place was packed. It was a really enjoyable night, and one of those evenings where we all remembered why we did Pin Ups in the first place.
It was superb to see so many people in costume. A personal highlight was seeing one of the Pin Ups DJs, dressed in costume as “Big Suited” David Byrne, playing Psycho Killer around 2.30am.
There was a bearded guy dressed as, yes, the deid Amy Winehouse (RIP), a Statue Of Liberty, a “Jedward Scissorhands”, Goldie Lookin Chain, and JFK & Jackie O (complete with gunshot wounds). Colonel Mustard and the Dijon 5 also returned to play live, and if Carl Barat proved to be an old-school handful, the Colonel showed him how real stars behave and was showbiz charm personified..
These photos are mostly by Iain Baillie and Martin Craig – thanks to both.
If you’ve enjoyed this wee stagger down memory lane, please snap up a copy of Retired Teenagers: the story of a Glasgow club night.